Magazines do matter: MagLab launch

MagLab was launched on 6 December 2022 in a hybrid presentation session at Lusófona University. The event counted on the presence of Tim Holmes, the precursor of Magazine Studies in Europe and MagLab’s adviser.

At the Opening Session, Carla Rodrigues Cardoso, MagLab’s scientific coordinator, and Tim Holmes presented MagLab goals and announced the creation of MagNet, a magazine studies researchers’ network.

Ana Figueiras, MagLab’s assistant scientific coordinator, presented the conferences that MagLab is organizing, namely Mapping the Magazine 8 in 2024 and the first Future of Magazine international conference on 19-21 July 2023, a 3-day biennial event that will bring together academia and industry.

In the second part of the MagLab launch, magazine research connections were explored. Carla Rodrigues Cardoso presented the results concerning newsmagazines on the IM Lab – Intersectionality Media Lab – The Joacine Katar Moreira Case Study, a CICANT’s exploratory project.

Ivan Bomfim (Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa), Dora Santos Silva (NOVA University) and Camila Hartmann (Universidade Federal de Santa Maria) the editors of the special Animus number on Magazine Journalism, presented the contents of the journal released on March 2022.

National Geographic is part of Carla Bento Guedes (Lusófona University) PhD research. The goal is to explore magazine journalists’ work through an “Inquiry of Discomfort” using National Geographic as a case study.

MagLab launch ended with two book presentations. Tim Holmes presented Transforming magazines: rethinking the media in the digital age, a book that results from the papers presented on Mapping the Magazine 6. Carla Baptista (NOVA University) presented Para uma História das revistas de informação geral em Portugal, developed under the research project Towards a History of Journalism in Portugal, a four-year FCT funded research project.